And Also With You
by JeannieMac
Summary: Missing scene for "Blame Canada" (Season 1, episode 5). Henry & Elizabeth de-brief after the Embassy party.


AUTHOR'S NOTE: _"Blame Canada" (season 1 episode 5) has so many good bits: Matt and Daisy quizzing Blake about his date for the Embassy party ("He never specifies a pronoun!")... The kids telling Elizabeth about Henry making the Top 10 Arm Candy list... Henry geeking out to a less-than-enthusiastic Jason about his scholarly pursuits..and then going all Captain Fighter Pilot on that drunk Marine...Elizabeth insisting on actually reading the pipeline report, and then tearing a strip off the hapless staffers who failed to twig that it was written by an oil lobbyist...Elizabeth thinking outside the box and using her CIA background to pull of some badass diplomacy vis-a-vis Iran...the beginning of her friendship with Javani...I could go on. But the bit that shook something loose in the writer part of my brain was Henry and Jason towards the end, talking about Henry's war service._

The house is quiet and dark when Elizabeth finally gets back from the White House. She steps out of her heels and carries them in her hand as she tiptoes up the stairs. It's probably selfish of her, but she's so glad when she gets to the second floor and sees that the door to their bedroom isn't fully closed, and there's a light on. Henry, in boxers and T-shirt, is sitting up in bed with a book open in his lap.

"Hey, you."

"Hi."

She crosses to sit down on the bed in a rustle of blue taffeta, and leans in to kiss him hello.

"Mmm. You've been into the Scotch."

"Yeah." Henry seems a little sheepish, like she's caught him out, and she's not sure why.

"Any left for me?"

He gestures to the tumbler on the bedside table. "You're welcome to finish that. I probably shouldn't have any more."

That makes her pause and look at him more carefully.

"Are you _drunk_ , Doctor McCord?"

"Of course not," says Henry with exaggerated dignity, which means he is, a little. She grins, and reaches over to take the glass.

"So...how did your plan turn out, tonight?" he asks carefully.

She sighs, and tilts the last of his Scotch into her mouth, feeling it burn a warm trail down her throat. All she could say to him, before the party, was _I'm going to try to pull another rabbit out of a hat. I need you to help Nadine create a distraction so I can leave the room for a bit_. She wants so badly to tell him all about it - her crazy Hail Mary of an idea, based on nothing more than a trickle of stubborn hope that she'd read Javani right, back in the day; that he hadn't changed course in the intervening years; that in spite of all evidence to the contrary, Iran was looking for a face-saving way to de-escalate. _I think I did it_ , she wants to say. _I think I managed to walk two governments back from the brink_. The whole thing is just so - so _big_ , and full of uncertainty. Talking it through with Henry would make it seem less overwhelming, she knows. But she can't do that, not yet.

"It...may have worked," she says at last. "We'll see, tomorrow - but there's hope."

"That's great, babe. Well done."

She slides her free hand over his, on top of the open book. "Thanks for your help. You and Nadine looked really good together - from what I saw before I snuck away."

Henry makes a self-deprecating sound. "That was all Nadine. Did you know she used to dance professionally?"

"She is a woman of hidden depths, that's for sure."

Henry turns his hand under hers, interlacing their fingers. "I'd rather have danced with you, you know that, right?"

She smiles, and tilts her head, contemplating him. He looks tired, which is no surprise, but also…sad? Or like he's struggling with something, just under the surface.

"What?"

His inquiring look is a good front, it really is. She could almost believe there's nothing going on, apart from exhaustion and the booze. Almost.

"Can you help me with this?" She gestures to her dress, and twists around so her back is to him. "I can't reach the little hook things at the top of the zipper."

Henry leans forward, and she waits until he's dealing with the fastening to say, very softly,

"Are you okay? What's wrong?"

The way Henry freezes, just for a second, is a tell, as clear as if he'd spoken. He finishes with the hooks and carefully slides the zipper down. And then - yup, he's definitely a little tipsy, because he lets out his breath in a gusty sigh, and tilts forward until his forehead touches her bare shoulder blade. It's so rare for him to be the one who leans on her, and it makes her want to wrap him up in her arms and never let go.

"It's nothing," he's saying. "Not like what you're dealing with these days -

"Hey," she says sharply. "Don't. Your stuff is important too."

She fumbles behind her and pulls his arm around her waist, pressing back into the makeshift hug.

"Come on. Spill."

Henry's grip on her tightens for a second, and he turns his face briefly into the crook of her neck.

"I know you're dying to get out of this dress. Let's just - get ready for bed and then I'll talk, I promise."

So they do. She hangs up the blue dress and changes into pyjamas, washes her face, brushes her teeth. He does the same, and she feels the quiet normalcy of their usual nighttime routine settling into her body, calming her down. She's not sure she could ever explain it to anyone - how just sharing space with him, the two of them moving around each other in the bathroom in this totally ordinary way, is somehow profoundly reassuring.

And yes, she's worried about him now, on top of everything else…but if she's honest, she's more than a little glad to focus on something that's not the situation in Iran. Maybe it'll help to force the sickening, tightrope-walk dread into a manageable box in her mind.

She fills a big glass of water and pushes it across the space between their bathroom sinks, with a pointed look. Henry rolls his eyes, but drinks half and takes the rest with him back to bed.

When she comes out of the bathroom, he's lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling. She shuts off the rest of the lights in the room and crawls in beside him. As her eyes adjust, she leans over him and runs a hand up his chest, feeling her way to his cheek. He turns his face into her palm and she runs a thumb across his lips and finds his mouth with hers. Lets the wordless caress stand in for _Hi, again_ and _Love you_ and _I'm sorry you're sad_.

Then she settles down beside him, close enough that she can still see his face a little, in the dim light from the street lamp outside.

"Okay. Now tell me what's got you drinking alone at one in the morning." She waves a hand vaguely in the direction of the bedside table and the book he was reading. "Kierkegaard doesn't usually have that effect on you."

Henry chuckles a little.

"I was just going through the motions with Kierkegaard."

Pause, then he sighs. "This has been more of a Nancy Sherman kind of night."

"Nancy Sherman…"

It takes her a few seconds, but then the connection pops into her head.

"That philosophy prof at Georgetown who writes about war veterans and - what's it called...ethical trauma?"

"Moral injury, as a component of PTSD." Henry turns his head on the pillow to stare at her. "I can't believe you got that reference."

"You were reading her books - last summer, right? You went on about her so much that I had to check her out. I was a little jealous."

"You were not."

 _But me saying so made you smile_ , she thinks, satisfied. Even in the semi-darkness, she can see it: the same look he always gives her when she pretends to worry about other women. It says _that's ridiculous and we both know it,_ and she smiles back, holding his gaze, letting the silence fill up with the warmth of shared certainty.

"I was curious, though," she continues after a moment. "You were all fired up. She got you talking about…things you don't normally bring up very often."

She remembers it clearly now: how, in telling her about Sherman's books, he said things about his deployment, and about the hard time right after he came home, that she had never heard before, not in twenty years.

"Yeah. Her work is really important."

"So... what was it about tonight that made you think of her?"

Henry's reluctance to continue is palpable. She holds herself still, looks away so he won't feel her watching him, waits.

"Jason was still up when I got home. Stevie said she thought he needed to talk to me. So I sat down with him, and...he asked me if we were going to war."

The buzzing anxiety spikes at that, of course, and she ruthlessly throttles it down.

"Not if I have anything to do with it," she mutters.

"That's what I said. I was all set to keep on reassuring him about it, but then - he asked me about Desert Storm."

"For his English report?"

"God, I hope not. Because his follow-up question was _did you kill anyone?_ "

Elizabeth feels her eyebrows go up. "Oh."

"Yeah."

 _Well. That explains Nancy Sherman, then_. "What did you say?"

"I said yes. I - for a second I thought about lying. But I couldn't. Not about that."

"Agreed," says Elizabeth cautiously. "How'd he take it?"

"He asked me how many. How many people I killed."

"Oh boy," she says softly.

"And I gave him some stock answer about the training, and how you don't get to the point of - of dropping bombs on people, without due consideration, but -

Henry cuts himself off abruptly and drags a hand over his face.

"I didn't tell him how many. I don't even know how many, not for sure. But he's a smart kid, he knows how to read between the lines. He's got to realize the number's pretty high."

"What did he say?"

"He asked me if I still think about it. I said _yes, I do, a lot_. And then... he just said good night - gave me a hug - and went to bed."

"But - did he seem upset?" Elizabeth tries to picture it, to imagine Jason's reactions.

"I don't know. I couldn't tell. You know what he's like - he has an opinion about everything under the sun, but personal stuff? He clams right up. But…wouldn't you be upset, if you found out something like that about your dad?"

She thinks about it, doing her best to ignore the familiar sense of loss, of being in free-fall, rootless and anchor-less. It always flashes through her when something reminds her that she never got the chance to know her parents as people in their own right; never got to to figure out who she was in relation to them, as an adult. She can't actually answer Henry's question - not from personal experience, anyway. But she does know Jason. In some ways, of all their kids, he's the most like her.

"I think... if he's asking the questions, he's probably already thought about the answers," she says slowly. "And…sure, he's - I don't know, testing you, because that seems to be all he does these days, to both of us - but maybe it's also about figuring out his own position. Like, he's asking what you did in the war because he's thinking about what he'd do.

…Which probably feels like a lot less of an academic question than it should right now, given everything with Iran, and...wow, now I'm thinking about how much I hate the idea of Jason even _considering_ fighting in a war...and this can't be helping you, I'm sorry."

Henry actually laughs a little, albeit without much humour.

"It's okay. I'm not even really sure why this has thrown me so hard. It's not like it's new, right? I've had students challenge me on my military service in class, for God's sake. I teach ethics, it's kind of inevitable. It's never fun but...I guess it's different when it's my own son."

She reaches over and finds his hand, clenched into a fist on his chest.

"You told him the truth when he asked. I think that's the most important thing. But...maybe you need to find a way to talk to him about it a bit more."

"Yeah. Probably." Henry takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. Then, still staring at the ceiling:

"Fair warning: I'm probably not going to sleep very well tonight."

Her heart twists; that's code they haven't had to use in a while, for _I'm probably going to have nightmares_.

"Copy that," she says matter-of-factly. She sees him about to continue, and stops him with a swift kiss, her lips against his temple as she continues. "And if you even _think_ about offering to sleep in the guest room, I'll...I'll tell Ambassador Clark that you were totally fascinated by what he had to say about ice sculptures, and you want to schedule a private meeting to learn more."

It's kind of weak, as joke-y threats go, but Henry's huff of laughter is real this time, and that's a victory as precious in its way as anything she might have done on the international stage tonight. She leans up on her elbow to kiss him again, properly this time; he leans into it, his free hand sliding into the curve of her waist.

"Hey, speaking of Clark, I have a question," he says, when they come up for air. "Not about any rabbits you may or may not have pulled out of hats tonight, I promise."

"Shoot."

It's a transparent attempt to redirect the conversation, but she's not about to call him on it. Throwing up a smokescreen of triviality to buffer the hard stuff is usually more her coping mechanism than his...but that just means she knows, better than anyone, that the topic isn't important right now. The point is the rest of it: the two of them lying close and warm in the dark, limbs tangled together, talking about nothing in the sleepy almost-whispers that no one else ever hears. God knows she needs the comfort of it too, tonight.

Still, she's not expecting the question that Henry actually asks.

"All that talk about ice. Was he trolling me?"

" _Trolling_ you…?" she says, totally mystified. "That's an internet thing, Professor, even I know that."

"Actually, the kids use it for in-person stuff too, now, the meaning seems to be shifting..." says Henry, temporarily sidetracked. Then he shakes his head. "Never mind. My point is - Clark: was he pretending to take all that stuff so seriously because he knew I'd have to go along with it, or risk insulting all of Canada? I mean - no one is that interested in ice. It made me wonder if he was doing it on purpose to yank my chain. Or yours, I guess."

"That seems... far-fetched." Elizabeth yawns. "He does have a kind of…aggressively dull thing going on, I'll give you that. I could believe that he goes on about ice or whatever as a tactic…like, getting people to let down their guard by boring them stupid, or something. But why would he feel the need to do that with you? And anyway, he's always so polite…"

"Right, _exactly_. Look, think about all the other Canadians we know," Henry says, in full arguing-a-theory mode. She pushes her pillow into a more comfortable position under her cheek, and watches affectionately as he lays out his evidence.

"Luisa from the Dean's office at UVA, and what's-his-name who used to teach British history…oh, and Stevie's friend from middle school, Brigitte - remember we had dinner with her parents a few times? All of them, really nice, polite people…but also _snarky_ in this really stealth, subversive kind of way."

Elizabeth opens her mouth to scoff, and then stops, actually thinking about it. "Okay, but..."

Now she's going through all of her previous interactions with the Ambassador in her mind. All the times she'd thought _Good lord, he is SO Canadian_. Was there a knowing gleam in his eye in those moments?

"Holy crap, Henry, I might have to reconsider our entire diplomatic relationship with Canada."

He chuckles. She shoves at his shoulder.

"You realize this is the exact opposite of helpful. Now I'm going to think about it every time I see him…but I'll never know if it's true. I can't come out and ask him if he's making fun of me by - by being _too Canadian_. It'd be another War of 1812!"

"Sorry," says Henry, not looking sorry at all. They lie there grinning at each other for a few seconds, and then, inexorably, the smile slides off his face, and he looks away, rolling onto his back again.

She sighs inwardly, and moves over so she's pressed up against his side. She strokes her foot up his calf, under the covers.

"Hey. There are things we could do that would help us sleep," she whispers.

Henry turns his head to give her a disbelieving look at point-blank range.

"We're both exhausted."

"We can keep it…low-key." She runs her hand down his torso, slipping under his T-shirt and teasing at the waistband of his boxers. "You don't have to do anything. Just lie back and... think of Canada."

She giggles into his shoulder as she says it, and Henry groans.

"Oh my god. At some point I'm going to have to look Clark in the eye again, and -

He cuts himself off as she finds the slit in his boxers and slips her hand inside.

"So we'll be even," she says, still grinning, watching his face as she strokes him slowly.

"I - if you keep doing that, I'm pretty sure I'll owe you one…" His eyes fall shut.

She leans in to kiss him again - cheekbone, temple, eyelids, mouth, as she keeps her hand moving. She's so tired she's dizzy with it, and when she thinks about the fact that a few hours ago she was brokering peace with Iran _in the kitchen at the Canadian Embassy, for crying out loud_ , she feels the fear and anxiety roil up, threatening to overtake everything...but this - Henry, warm and solid beside her, his skin soft under her hand and his arm holding her close - it helps.

It's not long, though, before Henry moves restlessly.

"Babe, I don't think - I just - sorry." He stumbles to a stop, and her heart twists again.

"Henry. It's okay." She extricates her hand, gently. "What do you need? You know I was joking before; if you really want some space you can go into the other room - or I will if you'd rather - "

"No," Henry says. He makes a frustrated sound and scrubs his hands over his face. "I don't - there's nothing - it is what it is. I came to terms with it a long time ago. This is just - living with it."

"I know. It _sucks_."

She makes her tone extra sulky, and is rewarded by his shaky chuckle.

"Yeah."

There's a small silence, and then,

"It helps that you get it," Henry says to the ceiling. "I'm not _glad_ you've had so much practice at making life-and-death choices, exactly, but - I feel a lot less alone with this now than I did back when I first came home from Iraq."

"Good," she says as firmly as she can manage around the sudden lump in her throat. "I mean…not good that you felt alone back then. But - you know. Score one for the CIA and the State Department."

"Shared experience in the moral gray areas; just what every public service couple needs," Henry mutters.

"They should put that in the recruiting manual."

Then she hugs him tight, because sarcastic humour is all well and good - another of their tried-and-true coping mechanisms - but she really, _really_ hates the thought of him struggling on his own after Desert Storm. Or ever.

"I'm okay," he says after a minute. "Really. I might even sleep, at least for a bit. And you definitely should. I don't know how you're even still awake right now, after the week you've had."

"The miracle of caffeine," she mumbles, but it's as if his words have cut the last thread that was keeping her alert and coherent. Exhaustion crashes over her in a wave, and she has just enough wherewithal to remember that falling asleep tangled up with him like this...won't end well, if he does have a nightmare. So she rolls away onto her other side, tugging on his arm in wordless instruction to spoon up behind her. Easier for him to move away later, if (when) he needs some space, but for now they can still touch.

Henry goes where he's pulled, more or less, but he leaves a few inches between them. She listens to his breathing go slow and regular, and is pretty sure he's counting beats in his head: _inhale, one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three, one thousand four, and exhale_. Striving for calm, hoping sleep will come without dreams.

 _Peace be with you._ The words float across her mind, an echo, the blessing given at the close of the church services they used to go to as a family sometimes, when the kids were little. Javani said it too, earlier, when they parted at the Embassy - or a variation on the theme at least: _ma' al-salamah_ , "with peace", the formal Arabic farewell. She said it back to him, the words soft and musical, and yet so heavy with meaning. They understand each other, she and Javani - but so much still hangs in the balance.

Elizabeth doesn't pray, mostly. She understands personal religious faith on an intellectual level, she thinks; certainly the past two decades with Henry have given her lots of windows into how belief can work as a real-life, day-to-day thing. But she has never felt it, herself. Her need to be self-sufficient, to feel that she fights her own battles, goes deep. A basic tenet of her personality - or perhaps it was grafted on by force with the loss of her parents... by now, it hardly matters. She doesn't easily give up control to anyone or anything - higher powers included.

But sometimes it just wells up inside, regardless - the need to somehow reach out into the universe and say _please_. Not _please help_ , or _please give me a sign_ , or anything like that. She doesn't even know who she's asking, doesn't believe that anyone is actually listening. But she asks anyway, in her mind, as she slips into sleep with Henry at her back. Just - _please. Let him find peace_.

 _Let us all find peace._

THE END

AUTHOR'S NOTE #2: Okay, my feelings about the way the Canadian ambassador was portrayed may also have crept into this story. ;)


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